THE MEDICAL DIRECTORY.

1254 trained and untrained nursing staff required will depend on the types of patient received. According to the memorandum, in the ordinary mixed home there should be, as a general rule, two day nurses and one night nurse for each six patients. At least one nurse must be on night duty whenever there are four or more patients at the home or when any patient is acutely ill. Wherever practicable suitable sitting-room accommodation should be provided for the nurses. Particulars of the standard minimum equipment suggested by the Council are appended, and the list of requirements does not seem to us at all excessive. For example, for each bed the linen provided should be three pairs of sheets, three drawsheets, six pillow-cases, four bath towels, four face towels ; also two sets of blankets, each set consisting of two upper blankets and one under blanket. The provision of stretchers or carrying-chairs is considered desirable ; also of proper sluices for the cleansing of bedpans where possible. The Council considers the keeping in nursing homes of domestic animals, such as dogs and cats, to be undesirable. Undue restriction of visiting hours, inaccessibility of the sister in charge, the routine use of certain favourite purgatives irrespective of the habits of the patient, disinclination to allow the patient to get up until a day or two before he is discharged-all these defects are common enough, and are an indication of inconvenient structure or insufficient staffing, coupled with lack of imagination on the part of the authorities. It is the doctor’s business to ascertain whether the patient’s convalescence is being retarded by feelings of resentment against the discipline under which he is placed; very often a word explaining the difficulties of administration will serve to put an

entirely different complexion on the matter. Perhaps the most important way in which the practitioner can help is to arrange that at each visit he sees the patient, if only for a few minutes, in the absence of either the nurse, sister, or matron. Often, if ample opportunity is given for complaints, none will be made, but the patient will feel that his comfort and welfare are still in the hands of his own trusted doctor, who is guarding his interests, physical and financial, with unremitting attention. THE

MEDICAL DIRECTORY.

THE Medical Directory for 1929 reaches us on Dec. 10th, 1928. It contains evidence of careful revision, the indexing has been improved, certain alterations have been made in headings for the sake of clearness, but the sum-total of change amounts to very little, for, in its eighty-fifth year of issue the publishers of the Directory have little to learn in the way of arrangement or convenience. The only doubt we have is in regard to the binding, which may be good enough for average use, but unfortunately does not survive 12 months of constant office reference. Following the title-page is the usual numerical summary of the medicalinprofession, which shows an 1929 over those of 1928. increase of 857 entries As usual, the change is distributed unequally over the seven sections, for whereas London (+174), the provinces (+377), Wales (+9) and Abroad (+371) show increase more or less substantial, Scotland ( - 46), Ireland (-13), and the Services (-15) each show a small decrease. On this page appears a new table .giving the numerical progress every decade from 1850 to 1920, in which it is instructive to note that the total number of names in the Directory doubled between 1850 and 1870 and again between 1870 and 1910. The introductory pages preceding the name index have been augmented from 116 to 122, the increase being due almost entirely to the inclusion of a directory of members of the Chartered Society of Massage and Medical Gymnastics. The space devoted to the Incorporation of Certified Masseurs and Masseuses has been proportionately reduced. Of strictly medical information the only addition is the enumeration of the Parliamentary Medical Committee, which, as everyone knows, includes the names of all

the Members of Parliament who possess a medical qualification, but, as everyone does not know, also includes the names of four coopted University representatives-namely, Colonel John Buchan, Sir Martin Conway, Sir Alfred Hopkinson, and Mr. J. J. Withers. The hon. secretary of the Committee is Dr. Drummond Shiels. In the local list for Ireland care has been taken to define the limits of the Free State and Northern Ireland. Finally, the section on the Health Resorts of Great Britain, Ireland, and New Zealand shows signs of careful revision and includes an interesting graph of the temperature of the sea in The Medical summer at various marine resorts. Directory is published by Messrs. J. and A. Churchill at the price of 36s. ____

AN OFFICE EDITION OF THE MEDICAL AND DENTAL REGISTERS. IN order to facilitate the work of those who find it essential to know whether a medical practitioner is legally qualified or not-such, for instance, as officials of insurance committees, chemists, and druggists-the General Medical Council publish an office edition of the lists contained in the Medical Register, giving the names and addresses of all registered practitioners. This office edition is bound in paper boards, and issued from the office of the Council, 44, Hallamstreet, London, W. 1, at the special rate of 7s. 6d. post free. Similarly the Dental Board publish an office edition of the Dentists Register containing the names and addresses of all registered practitioners and the local list at the price of 4s. post free. We are asked to state that in both cases copies are only issued at this price if they are ordered and paid for prior to Dec. 31st of the year preceding that of

publication.

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THE ARMY MEDICAL SERVICES. THE reconstitution of the Army Medical Advisory Board, which is to include four civilian members of the medical profession, is noted on p. 1262, where the new personnel is set out. The Board will be at the disposal of the Secretary of State for War, if he desires to consult them on any question of policy in connexion with the Army Medical Services. Normally the Board will meet three times a year, but the civilian members may arrange additional meetings on giving the necessary notice. It has also been decided to appoint a committee, to be known as the Army Medical Directorate Consultative Committee, which will contain six civilian members of the medical profession who hold instructional or other appointments at university centres or medical schools. This committee will be charged with the duty of advising the Director-General Army Medical Services on the supply of candidates for the R.A.M.C., on postgraduate and other courses, and other administrative or purely professional questions. The civilian members of the Board and of the Committee are admirably representative of medicine, surgery, and physiology; doubtless, machinery exists whereby a pathologist may be coopted on the last-named body.

Dr. Leonard Gregory Parsons, F.R.C.P., has been elected to the new chair of Infant Hygiene and Diseases of Children in the University of Birmingham. THE Belfast Public Health Committee has recommended Dr. Charles Samson Thomson, medical officer of health for Deptford, for the post of medical superintendent and officer of health for Belfast. FOLLOWING the award of the Nobel Prize for Medicine for 1928 to Prof. Charles Nicolle, director of the Pasteur Institute of Tunis, it is announced that the Nobel Prize for Chemistry is to be conferred on Prof. Adolf Windaus, of the Institute of General Chemistry at Gottingen, who has taken a large share in research on the photochemical formation of vitamin D.